The document attributed to John XXIII and issued on 21 October 1959 proclaims the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title “of Good Counsel” and Saint Benedict as principal heavenly patrons of the abbey nullius of New Norcia in Australia, granting them the liturgical honors and privileges due to primary patrons. In solemn canonical language it asserts full apostolic authority, perpetual validity, and nullity of all contrary attempts, presenting itself as an act of the Roman Pontiff exercising true jurisdiction over a portion of Christ’s flock.
Blasphemous Usurpation of Apostolic Authority in Pious Vestments
The text is externally clothed in traditional Latin, Marian devotion, and reverence for Saint Benedict; internally it is a juridical act of a man who inaugurated the conciliar revolution, arrogating to himself papal authority and using venerable names as a façade for the nascent abominatio desolationis (abomination of desolation) that would soon occupy Rome.
From the perspective of integral Catholic faith—whose norm is the unchanging doctrine before 1958—this brief “apostolic letter” is not harmless. It is a highly symptomatic fragment of the program of John XXIII, whose entire public work must be read in light of:
– His convocation of Vatican II with its modernist agenda.
– His programmatic rejection of the authentic Catholic stance against liberalism and naturalism condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus Errorum.
– His practical dismantling of the reign of Christ the King so solemnly taught by Pius XI in Quas Primas.
By claiming: «certa scientia ac matura deliberatione Nostra deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine» (“with Our certain knowledge, mature deliberation and the fullness of apostolic power”), this act is either:
– An assertion of non-existent papal jurisdiction (if one recognizes John XXIII as a manifest modernist, thus falling under the principles recalled by Bellarmine and canon 188 §4 of the 1917 Code), or
– A juridical instrument of the conciliar sect, exploiting Marian and Benedictine devotions to legitimize its counterfeit authority.
In both cases, the sacred names are instrumentalized to consolidate a usurped throne.
Factual Mask: A Traditional Gesture Serving a Revolutionary Project
At the factual level, the document appears simple:
– It states that the faithful of New Norcia have long venerated Our Lady of Good Counsel and Saint Benedict.
– It reports the request of Gregory Gómez, O.S.B., Ordinary of the abbey nullius, to have them declared principal patrons.
– It grants this request, attaching the usual liturgical privileges, and invokes strict canonical language to ensure binding force.
No explicit doctrinal novelty is proclaimed. Yet to stop at this surface is to ignore Catholic principles of legitimacy and context.
1. The decisive fact before 1958: the Church always judged claims of papal authority not by pious rhetoric but by fidelity to the integral deposit of faith. The same Pius X who ratified Lamentabili sane exitu and Pascendi condemned Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies,” including those which:
– Subject doctrine to historical evolution,
– Reduce ecclesial authority to the expression of the “people of God,”
– Undermine the objective, immutable content of Revelation.
2. John XXIII’s pontificate is historically and doctrinally characterized by the opposite tendencies:
– Programmatic optimism toward the world, in opposition to Pius IX’s and Pius X’s condemnation of liberal civilization and secret societies (see the Syllabus and anti-Masonic teaching).
– The launching of Vatican II under a hermeneutic of accommodation to “modern man,” implicitly contradicting the unchangeable stance of the pre-1958 Magisterium.
– Rehabilitation of those very ideas and currents anathematized by his predecessors.
Thus, when this man writes in 1959 with the style of a traditional pope, one must apply the classic theological rule: abusus signorum non tollit veritatem criteriorum (abuse of the signs does not remove the truth of the criteria). The criteria of true papal authority—orthodoxy, non-contradiction with prior solemn Magisterium, non-manifest heresy—are absent from his broader record. Therefore, this act is an early piece of a counterfeit magisterium: a usurper invoking authentic forms while preparing apostasy.
Linguistic Simulation of Orthodoxy as Instrument of Deception
The language of the text is deliberately modeled on pre-modern Roman style:
– «Ad perpetuam rei memoriam»
– «certa scientia ac matura deliberatione Nostra»
– «deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine»
– «praesentes Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces iugiter exstare ac permanere»
– Nullification clauses against any contrary attempts.
This juridical solemnity would be fitting coming from a true successor of Peter. Coming from John XXIII, it is the rhetoric of legitimacy used to habituate clergy and faithful to accept his authority unquestioningly, so that the far graver “reforms” (Vatican II, liturgical subversion, ecumenical dissolution) might be introduced under an already recognized seal.
Key observations on the rhetoric:
– The entire text is self-referential regarding authority: repeated emphasis on his own “apostolic power” and on the canonical efficacy of the act.
– The saints invoked (Our Lady and Saint Benedict) are presented as already venerated protectors; the “pope” simply recognizes and formalizes that cult.
This is psychologically shrewd: by choosing an evidently orthodox and edifying object (patronage), the usurper cloaks himself in the aura of continuity. The linguistic mimicry of pre-1958 formulas functions as a liturgical-linguistic camouflage for the emerging conciliar revolution.
Authentic Catholic popes used such formulas to defend the Church against modern errors. John XXIII uses them as a stage prop while preparing to enthrone those errors. The dissonance between form and overall agenda is in itself a mark of spiritual duplicity.
Theological Contradiction: Holy Names under the Shadow of Modernism
From the theological standpoint, several points emerge.
1. Invocation of true saints does not validate a false authority.
– Catholic theology holds that veneration of Our Lady and the saints is intrinsically ordered to Christ and His one true Church.
– A man separated from the integral doctrine cannot make his orthodoxy credible merely by solemnly pronouncing Marian and Benedictine titles.
– The devil himself can quote Scripture; modernist infiltrators can quote liturgical formulas.
Pius X in Pascendi describes Modernists as those who remain within the external structures of the Church, using her language while subverting her faith from within. This “apostolic letter” is a case study: blessed names in the mouth of one who would inaugurate a council that dissolved the public reign of Christ and embraced religious liberty condemned by Pius IX.
2. The act claims perpetual validity via a subject whose broader doctrinal stance is incompatible with the papal office as defined by the Church.
– Pre-1958 doctrine (Bellarmine, Suarez, the common teaching of theologians summarized in the sources you provided) affirms that a manifest heretic cannot be head of the Church, because:
«Non potest esse caput eius qui non est membrum» (“He cannot be the head of that of which he is not a member”).
– Canon 188 §4 of the 1917 Code codifies that public defection from the faith produces automatic loss of office.
– The magisterial condemnations in the Syllabus, Lamentabili, and Pascendi bind all; one who promotes their negation, or constructs an entire ecclesial program on such negations, cannot simultaneously hold authority to bind the faithful.
Therefore the claim: «praesentes Litteras firmas, validas atque efficaces iugiter exstare ac permanere» is theologically void if issued by a usurper. The solemn style accentuates, rather than hides, the usurpation: a counterfeit seal placed on a pious envelope.
3. Silence about the central battle of the age.
The document’s piety is entirely naturalized: it speaks of public and private needs, of protection, of favors received; but makes no reference to:
– The crisis of faith,
– Modernism’s assault on Revelation,
– Secularism and the denial of Christ’s kingship over nations,
– The duty of rulers and societies to subject themselves to Christ the King, as taught by Pius XI in Quas Primas.
In isolation, such silence might be tolerable in a minor decree. In context—on the eve of Vatican II—it is symptomatic. While Pius XI explicitly states that society’s scourges come from rejecting Christ’s reign and that peace is only possible in His kingdom, the conciliar architects move in the opposite direction, preparing “religious liberty,” “dialogue,” and “ecumenism” exactly condemned by earlier popes.
The Marian and Benedictine patronage here is not directed against those systemic evils; it is merely decorative. The greatest sin of the text is its refusal to confess the kingship of Christ as normative for civil order and to call souls back to the true faith in a time of growing apostasy. It replaces militant clarity with a devout administrative gesture.
Symptoms of the Conciliar Sect: Continuity of Form, Apostasy of Substance
At the symptomatic level, this document exhibits the essential features of the post-1958 neo-church:
1. Use of traditional canonical machinery to normalize illegitimate authority.
– The solemn “ad perpetuam rei memoriam”, the invocation of plenitude of apostolic power, the nullification clauses—all classic elements.
– Yet the same claimed authority will soon be deployed to convene a “pastoral” council that:
– Promotes religious liberty in contradiction to the Syllabus (proposition 77–80 condemned),
– Praises the separation of Church and State in practice against proposition 55,
– Exalts “human dignity” and “rights of man” detached from Christ the King, against Quas Primas,
– Opens the doors to ecumenism condemned consistently before.
When an authority uses Catholic forms as instruments to subvert Catholic dogma, we are no longer dealing with the visible head of the true Church, but with a parasitic structure occupying her external organs.
2. Spiritual anesthesia through innocuous piety.
– While modernism of the classical type directly attacked dogma, conciliar modernism operates more subtly: maintain selected devotions, feasts, and holy names, while eroding the dogmatic and social content that gives them meaning.
– This letter perfectly fits that pattern:
– It affirms nothing explicitly erroneous;
– It omits everything essential to the current fight;
– It strengthens the moral recognition of John XXIII as “pope” in the minds of the faithful.
This is why such texts are dangerous: they fuse orthopraxis in small things with heterodox praxis in great things, creating for the faithful a habit of submission to an anti-Catholic program.
3. Manipulation of legitimate monastic and Marian devotion.
– Saint Benedict, father of Western monasticism, defender of Christian civilization, is here placed under the patronage of one who would inaugurate the demolition of that very civilization through conciliar aggiornamento.
– Our Lady of Good Counsel, invoked historically for clear discernment and fidelity, is associated with a regime that will soon enthrone doctrinal ambiguity, “pastoral” equivocation, and institutionalized confusion.
This juxtaposition is not neutral; it is a symbolic inversion: holy patrons invoked to front an anti-confessional, ecumenical, naturalistic agenda.
God’s Law above Humanistic Counterfeit: The Missing Kingship of Christ
If this act truly proceeded from the Vicar of Christ, one would expect at least an implicit alignment with the principles reasserted by earlier pontiffs:
– Pius XI in Quas Primas teaches that peace and order are impossible until individuals and states recognize the social kingship of Christ; Christ must reign over legislation, education, and public life.
– Pius IX in the Syllabus condemns propositions asserting:
– That the State is the source of rights (39),
– That religious liberty and pluralism are beneficial (77–79),
– That the Roman Pontiff can reconcile himself with liberalism and modern civilization understood as emancipation from the Church (80).
This letter, instead of situating Marian and Benedictine patronage within that militant framework, is entirely apolitical and de-supernaturalized in its tone: no mention of:
– The obligation of New Norcia and Australia to subject themselves publicly to Christ the King,
– The duty of civil rulers to honor and protect the true religion,
– The sacramental life and state of grace as necessary for obtaining the saints’ protection.
This silence is not accidental. It prefigures the conciliar sect’s capitulation to the secular mythology of “human rights,” “dialogue,” and “tolerance,” where Christ’s absolute rights are muted. The holy names serve as theological wallpaper covering the surrender of the Church’s public claims.
Exposure of Clerical and Lay Illusions
One must also address the illusions encouraged by such documents:
1. Illusion for clergy: that obedience to any duly formatted Roman document is virtue, even when the broader line of that authority contradicts prior Magisterium.
True obedience in Catholic theology is always in ordine ad Deum (ordered to God). Saints and theologians recognize that no one, not even a pope, may command adherence to error or programs opposed to previous solemn teaching. The conciliar usurpers exploited clerical formalism to paralyze resistance.
2. Illusion for laity: that as long as Marian feasts, Benedictine spirituality, or “Latin decrees” remain, all is well.
This naturalistic comfort is deadly. The gravest accusation against the conciliar sect is precisely its refusal to speak of:
– Mortal sin,
– Eternal punishment,
– The necessity of the true faith and the true sacraments,
– The duty to reject heresy and modernist structures.
A text such as this, by preserving external piety while omitting the battle-lines drawn by Pius IX and Pius X, lulls souls into accepting an anti-church as if it were the Mystical Body of Christ.
Conclusion: The Hollow Decree of a Counterfeit Authority
Evaluated against the immutable doctrine and canonical principles prior to 1958, this “apostolic letter” is:
– Theologically: formally orthodox in its immediate content, yet materially instrumentalized to support a broader revolutionary design.
– Juridically: void of binding force if issued by one who, through manifest modernist orientation, cannot be recognized as possessing legitimate papal authority under the very principles taught by the pre-conciliar Magisterium and classical theologians.
– Spiritually: a subtle device of the conciliar sect to clothe a usurped magisterium in Marian and monastic garments, thereby neutralizing vigilance and resistance.
The saints invoked are true; their intercession is real for those who keep the integral Catholic faith and frequent the true sacraments. But their holy names, placed as seals on the acts of an emerging paramasonic, ecumenical neo-church, only highlight the contrast between the unchanging Bride of Christ and the counterfeit structure that presumes to speak in her name.
Ubi Christus Rex negatur in ordine publico, ubi modernismus damnatus laudatur, ibi non est Petri Cathedra sed thronus usurpatoris. (Where Christ the King is denied in public order, where condemned Modernism is praised, there is not the Chair of Peter but the throne of a usurper.)
Source:
Beatam Mariam Virginem, Litterae Apostolicae Beata Maria V. « A Bono Consilio » et Sanctus Benedictus, Abbas, praecipui Abbatiae « Nullius Dioecesis » Novae Nursiae in Australia Patroni Caelestes decl… (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025